La Syndicaliste (2022): A Conspiracy Thriller for the #MeToo World (Review)

Born in Ireland, Maureen Kearney was a trade unionist in France’s former state-owned nuclear company, Areva. Hearing of a contract between Areva and the bourgeoning Chinese nuclear industry from a disgruntled insider at EDF, Kearney grew fearful for the job security of her members and the future of the company and decided to go public with what she knew – but blowing the whistle on the surreptitous deal meant that she incurred the wrath of Areva executives and some political figures. She began to receive nuisance calls and threats and, on the morning of December 17th, 2012, she was attacked in her own home – bound, raped and scarrified by a masked intruder. Initially the police were sympathetic and provided round-the-clock security, but the investigation proved significantly flawed, with detectives disbelieving Kearney’s version of events and ignoring key evidence. With officers attempting to force a confession of self-mutilation, Kearney was accused of fabricating the whole ordeal as a means of gaining attention for her industrial concerns, and was given a suspended sentence in 2017 for a false allegation. Undettered, Kearney fought back and, on an appeal a year later, she was found not guilty. Just as she had warned, Areva folded – leading to thousands of job losses and a globally emboldened Chinese nuclear industry.

This then is the story of La Syndicaliste (stupidly retitled as Sitting Ducks in some English-speaking territories), a movie from director Jean-Paul Salomé, based on the 2019 account by investigative journalist Caroline Michel-Aguirre and released to cinemas this week. It stars Isabelle Huppert as Kearney, a bravura performance that does however choose to ignore her Irish roots. This is explained by the fact that Kearney has resided in France since her twenties and perhaps we should be grateful that no one asked Huppert to try to add a Celtic inflection to her natural accent, though it does make little sense whenever we hear her speak English, which she often has cause to do being an English teacher as well as a union rep. Nevertheless, when your film has the good fortune of bagging Huppert in the central role, I guess you should just be grateful and ignore these little niggling innacuracies.

With echoes of Silkwood, that other nuclear conspiracy thriller based on a true story (indeed, Salomé even lifts the famous headlights in the rear view mirror shot from Mike Nichols’ movie from 1984), Salomé’s movie explores corporate malfeasance and the depraved, underhand lengths that such corporations will go to to protect their interests and silence those who oppose them. However, it’s worth pointing out that Salomé seems more motivated by the second half of the movie, centring on Kearney’s quest to get the story of her attack believed, than he is on the first half, which is about her protestations regarding the future of her industry.

To that end, La Syndicaliste is absolutely a movie about how women are treated in society. That Kearney’s story was viewed with scepticism by the (male) police officers tasked with investigating her violition is one that resonates deeply in the #MeToo world. Salomé spares his audience none of the details of the physical and mental indignities that Kearney faced when turning to the authorities for justice. If audiences found Huppert’s Kearney, left bound and gagged in her basement for several hours, the letter ‘A’ carved into her torso with a knife that the attacker has since forced (handle-first, thankfully) into her vagina to be a horrifying sight, then it is nothing compared to the enraging sight of medical professionals (on the instruction of detectives) forcing her to relive the grotesque ordeal by introducing an 8 cm speculum into her vagina to test her claim. This ignimony arises because the investigating officer (Pierre Deladonchamps), who had previously claimed “she doesn’t behave the way a rape victim should”, is dubious of her claim that the knife stayed in her for the six hours until her discovery. When she is shown capable of expelling the speculum, he believes it to be another sign of proof that Kearney is being untruthful. This infuriating scepticism earns a welcome rebuke from his female junior (Aloise Sauvage), who is heard to doubt his understanding of how tampons work, before a court will later hear how he is seemingly as ignorant of how the victim can, in the face of such a terrifying and brutal attack, simply shut down in order to preserve themselves.

Audiences will rightly come away impressed by Huppert, who easily illicits our sympathy even when the screenplay insists upon presenting her (and, in turn, her claims) at her most ambiguous, but some praise must be reserved for her co-stars too. There’s a good turn from Marina Fois as Kearney’s friend and colleague Anne Lauvergeon, the Areva CEO removed from her role as a result of political manipulations, with the actress presenting an innate slyness that does just enough to imply that she is pulling Kearney’s strings as a whistleblower for her own gain without incurring litigation from the real-life Lauvergeon. Yvan Attal is also very good as Lauvergeon’s successor at Areva, Luc Oursel, whose misogyny, volatile temperament and cosying up to China marks him down as the film’s villain. But quietly impressing in the role of Kearney’s musician husband is Gregory Gadebois – a very understated performance of a very nice guy.

The downside is that Salomé is the kind of director who believes so much in the power of his real-life tale that he presumes it will speak for itself. He doesn’t really compliment it in terms of panache or spirit in his own filmmaking and, if Kearney’s plight wasn’t as capable of emotionally registering with its audience as it proves to be, La Syndicaliste would be somewhat flat and bland as a movie.

Mark’s Archive: La Syndicaliste (2022)